Why you need a janitorial estimating app

Janitorial estimates directly affect the profit of a cleaning service business and play a critical role in building momentum for long-term success.

Cloud-based bidding software for cleaning businesses provides key tools to create consistent, accurate estimates that boost profit margins. Unlike legacy estimating software, comprehensive janitorial business software connects estimating with all aspects of the job, from first contact with a potential client to collecting payment.

Leverage technology to improve processes and eliminate inefficiencies in estimating and beyond 

An all-in-one software solution drives project management by populating the workflow with data from the estimating template. Janitorial service providers benefit from automated processes that:

• Produce work orders

• Streamline dispatching

• Monitor project costs

• Send invoices 

Software not only saves time and reduces human error but provides critical data for generating future estimates.

This blog describes the benefits of janitorial estimating apps, highlights the most important features, and shows how estimating apps improve the bidding process.

What is a janitorial estimating app?

A janitorial estimating app is a software tool to calculate the cost of commercial cleaning services. It allows users to quickly and accurately estimate the cost of labor, materials, and other expenses associated with a job. 

Apps also provide helpful features such as:

• Tracking customer information

• Creating invoices

• Generating reports from  real-time data

By using a janitorial estimating app, businesses can save time and money while providing accurate estimates for their customers.

Understanding the advantages of using a janitorial estimating app

Janitorial estimating apps help professionals in the commercial cleaning industry quickly create accurate and profitable estimates using templates.

 Estimating software eliminates spreadsheets and text documents from bidding new jobs and automates key areas of the process to simplify estimating and reduce errors.

Using an app also makes it easy to keep track of your sales pipeline and prevents busy sales teams from forgetting leads and missing opportunities. Software isn’t just about adding technology to every aspect of your business. It’s a tool to empower better customer experiences and give your teams greater control. 

Uses for janitorial estimating software

Some key uses for janitorial estimating apps include:

• Calculate the cost of jobs: Easily add your company’s labor, material, or supply costs into the estimate. After completing the job, compare actual costs with estimated costs to ensure future estimates hit your profit margins and improve forecasting.

• Create professional proposals: Use pre-made templates to seamlessly generate cleaning proposals, including services, pricing, and language, so your cleaning company delivers professionalism at every step of the sales process.

• Bid projects faster: Quickly create estimates to operate with greater agility in a competitive market and win more cleaning jobs to improve revenue. 

Benefits of janitorial estimating apps 

Janitorial service software offers benefits across the organization, such as eliminating inefficiencies and redundancies. By implementing a software platform for business management, commercial cleaning businesses can save time in daily operations to generate more estimates—with greater accuracy—without needing more team members. 

Software also improves job management by eliminating time-consuming, error-prone manual estimating processes. When you streamline, you boost efficiency and performance.

These are some of the top benefits of implementing a janitorial estimating app.

Improve accuracy and consistency

Pre-made estimate templates enable your janitorial service to ensure accuracy and consistency in every bid, regardless of who builds it. 

Many commercial cleaning businesses have multiple team members generating estimates, so an additional layer of quality control with a template ensures minimum profit margins are maintained and eliminates the chance of a mistake in the bid.

Save time and reduce costs with process automation

Manual processes not only cause mistakes, but they also consume valuable time you could otherwise spend on growing your business. Estimating apps automate several aspects of the bidding process, such as:

• Takeoffs and quantity calculations

• Markups for labor, materials, subcontractors, and direct costs

• Proposal creation and distribution

• Invoicing and payment processing—invoices are generated directly from the estimate in Aspire

Additionally, estimating software automates margins and markups for labor, materials, subcontractors, and other direct costs to ensure accurate and profitable job costing.

Eliminate paperwork and manual processes

Eliminate errors from manual data entry and increase efficiency in the estimating and bidding process with web-based janitorial software. 

Paperless estimating also syncs with your CRM, so you can store all bids by customer or property and easily see the status of each bid in your sales pipeline. 

Improve profitability with automated margins and markups

Commercial cleaning service businesses focused on growth need to ensure profitability on each estimate. 

To stay in the black, estimating apps designed for the janitorial industry automatically factor in margins and markups for various costs, including labor, materials, and subcontractors, so you operate profitably on every cleaning job.

Easily handle complex, multi-year, and evergreen contract support

Janitorial service companies have both basic service and complex, multi-year agreements in their customer base. Aspire offers the functionality and flexibility to quickly produce estimates no matter the complexity of the job. 

Users can add and remove fields to customize a contract, including:

• Invoice type

• Payment frequency

• Start and stop dates

The software even makes it easy to automate price increases for multi-year jobs.

Adjust estimates with ease with centralized data storage and organization

With estimate data stored in your CRM, all of your branch locations gain real-time visibility into the sales pipeline and the ability to update and adjust estimates as needed. 

Aspire’s list function toggles between estimate statuses, including:

• Historic

• Active

• Signed 

Operation managers and owners can use the reporting and analytics feature to spotlight trends and patterns to guide growth-focused decision-making. 

Configurable bidding templates and kits

Estimate automation allows users to create and save templates for different types of bids and easily update costs for materials, staffing, and supplies as needed. 

This enables companies that frequently bid on smaller jobs to quickly issue estimates for minor tasks.

Streamline the estimate process to win more bids

Aspire’s end-to-end business management software streamlines operations by incorporating estimating with all aspects of your business. 

The software includes functionality to easily combine templates and product kits, so no matter how complicated the bid, any team member can bring together services, pricing, and language for consistent and accurate estimates.

How do estimating apps improve the bidding process?

Janitorial bidding software provides several tools to help commercial cleaning services level up their bidding process, such as:

Integration with QuickBooks and other software 

Key integrations with popular tools, including PropertyIntel for accurate property takeoffs and QuickBooks for accurate bookkeeping, reduces errors by eliminating manual data entry.

You can also improve cash flow by enabling integrations for online bill payment for customers by bank transfer or credit card via the customer portal.

Collaboration and communication features

Aspire's mobile platform functionality allows all employees to easily communicate and collaborate on bids, whether they're in the office or field. 

It also enables your staff to communicate with clients during the bidding process to answer questions and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Customizable bidding templates and kits to speed up the estimating process

Streamline bidding with customizable business kits that include labor, material, and supply costs in a single line. 

Save and reuse templates for popular services and automate takeoffs and quantity calculations using the PropertyIntel integration.

Ability to copy estimates across properties

Copy and paste pre-made estimating templates to quickly bid commercial contracts with multiple properties that require separate billing. 

This feature not only saves time but prevents errors from managing multiple estimates. Additionally, building managers can access their estimates in a central hub via electronic document storage. 

Real-time tracking and reporting 

Business management software for field services tracks and monitors the status of all estimates in real time. Bulk actions and the list function enable you to quickly assess bids awaiting signatures or needing follow-up. 

The software’s customizable reporting and analytics identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement, while increased transparency across all bids makes it easier to manage workflows and resources.

What to look for in an estimating app for the janitorial industry

When it comes to scaling a commercial cleaning business, you need business management software that generates growth within your current operations. However, not all solutions offer the same features or support. Some janitorial apps only help with single-point solutions rather than providing end-to-end management.  

The best estimating apps streamline all areas of running your business—from job scheduling and customer relationship management to dispatching and reporting. As you go through the sales process and evaluate different field service technologies, look for a solution with the following components: 

User-friendly interface and ease of use

The estimating software should provide user-friendly features for your office staff as well as techs in the field. 

Aspire’s Crew Mobile app for iOS and Android mobile devices helps estimators access precise time- and material-tracking data for more accurate estimates, and managers can capture customer signatures for smaller jobs on a laptop or tablet.

Customizable templates and bidding kits

Aspire’s estimating software eliminates the need for paper estimates and allows you to quickly build and customize bidding kits and templates for one-off jobs and complex, multi-property clients. 

Templates and kits ensure your bids remain consistent and accurate, no matter who creates the estimate. 

Integration with other software tools, such as CRM and accounting software 

You use several tools to run your cleaning business, and they should all talk to each other and share information. Aspire includes integrated CRM for managing customer relationships and also integrates seamlessly with accounting software like QuickBooks for accounting and PropertyIntel for completing accurate takeoffs and estimates.

Scalability to handle large and complex projects

Expanding your janitorial business requires more than investing in a single-use estimating app. To help cleaning businesses take on bigger and more complex projects to scale, Aspire provides end-to-end functionality to streamline every aspect of your organization, including:

• Scheduling

• Job costing

• Crew management

• Invoicing

• Account and payroll

• Reporting

• And more

Centralized data storage and organization

Estimating software helps janitorial companies stay organized by eliminating the need for paper schedules, whiteboards, or spreadsheets. In addition, the software enables all employees to access estimates and other important documents in the field with a tablet or laptop. This helps avoid confusion or miscommunication while allowing for accountability. 

Flexibility to customize and adjust estimates as needed 

Each business is different, so your estimating software should provide the flexibility to fit your needs. 

From reporting and scheduling to estimates and bid proposal templates, customizable solutions help janitorial services streamline operations.

Learn how Aspire has helped janitorial businesses win more bids and increase profitability

Similar to many large commercial cleaning businesses, ServiceMaster Clean needed a technology platform that could not only help them grow but serve as a trusted partner in their journey.

With over 225,000 businesses through a franchise network of more than 350 locations, they searched for an end-to-end management system with a user-friendly interface to help them unlock the growth potential of each franchise by improving their operations and business intelligence.

The enterprise cleaning service selected Aspire’s user-friendly platform in early 2023 to help the organization achieve its continued growth. 

“Our model is we serve, we care, we deliver, and we do,” says Joshua Ussiri, interim President of ServiceMaster Clean. “We want to improve the operations on every level, and Aspire gives us the ability to outline clear business drivers that will help us optimize efficiency and drive franchise profitability.” 

Start growing with Aspire

Janitorial estimating apps help cleaning service businesses estimate the cost of their services by enabling users to quickly and accurately calculate the cost of labor, materials, and other expenses. 

The app also provides helpful features such as tracking customer information, creating invoices, and generating reports.

Of course, there’s more to growing your business than producing estimates. Rather than purchasing another point solution or single-use estimating app, consider Aspire’s user-friendly software for janitorial services. 

Ready to learn more about how Aspire can help you grow your commercial janitorial business? Book a demo today to get started.